ABN Amro bank’s re-privatisation begins in Amsterdam

Certificates in the bank’s initial public offering (IPO) rose 3.4 percent to 18.35 euros in early trade after being priced at 17.75 euros each, seven years after a multi-billion euros state bailout at the height of the crisis.

Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said in a letter to lawmakers that the shares re-floated Friday have a total value of around 3.3 billion euros ($3.5 billion).

This means that the bank could bring in around 3.3 billion euros with this batch of shares. They received preferential treatment when subscribing to the offering, according to a Friday statement from NL Financial Investments, or NLFI, which owns nationalized financial companies on behalf of the Dutch government.

The remaining shares will be sold off in several lots at later dates.

“It has been properly handled”. The nationalization cost the State 22 billion euros.

Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro are managing the IPO, along with Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, ING Groep and Rabobank.

The largest flotation of a European bank since the financial crisis is getting underway for ABN Amro, as the Dutch taxpayer aims to recoup a few of the estimated €32bn spent on its bailout.

But the 71 billion-euro-deal, one of the largest in banking history, proved calamitous for the three buyers.

Fortis was also dismantled during 2008 to avoid bankruptcy.

Today ABN Amro is largely a commercial bank focusing significantly on the highly competitive mortgage market.

Last week it trumpeted continuing good results, enjoying net profits of a few 509 million euros for the third quarter, a 33 percent year-on-year increase.